The Folk from the Wind Wound Isle > The Franklin Expedition to find the North-West Passage, 1845-48
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Family stories passed down through Charlotte Robertson Dickins and Marjorie McCue Mathieson indicate that a Shetland Manson relative was a crew member on the ill-fated expedition to find the North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, led by Sir John Franklin. The names of crewmembers on the two ships of the expedition, ‘HMS Erebus’ and ‘FIMS Terror’, are listed on the Franklin memorial in Waterloo Place, London. The most likely candidate as a relation is Able Seaman Magnus Manson, aged 28, who served on ‘HMS Terror’. Like many other volunteers for the expedition, Manson was newly enlisted in the Royal Navy.
Marjorie Mathieson writes in 1999, “Lady Franklin wrote to our family on more than one occasion (at Xmas etc) but the letters were lost in a house fire.”1 Marjorie’s understanding is that Magnus Manson was a brother of Barbara Manson, however the record of her siblings given to me by the SFHS does not substantiate this.
'HMS Erebus’ and 'HMS Terror’ had already been used for Polar exploration taking Sir James Ross’ expedition to the Antarctic - 1839 to 1843. During that trip the ships stopped at Van Diemen’s where Sir John Franklin was serving as Governor. Franklin had had an earlier association with Australia. When he was seventeen he had sailed with his cousin Matthew Flinders during his epic circumnavigation of Australia. Captain Francis Crozier, who captained the ‘Terror’, had been Ross’s second in command during the Antarctica expedition.
After being completely refitted and strengthened, the ‘Erebus’ and the ‘Terror’ left Woolwich (London) on 12 May 1845, and reached Stromness in Orkney on 6 June. Here two members of the crew (unnamed) were given leave to travel to Kirkwell, one to visit his wife, whom he had not seen for 4 years; the other to visit his mother, whom he had not seen for 17 years. From Orkney the ships headed towards Greenland via Rona, stopping at the Whalefish Islands near Disco (Disko) Island, on the west coast of Greenland, and departing on 12 July 1845. The last contacts with the ‘Erebus’ and the ‘Terror ‘were by two whalers in Baffin Bay east of Lancaster Sound, in late July.2
The fate of the expedition can only be conjectured from evidence found years later. A large number of rescue parties were sent out in the 1850s to search for survivors. The government sponsored some of these. Others were privately funded. No survivors were found. A party led by McClintock and Hobson (1857-59) was the most successful, finding the only written evidence of the fate of the expedition. At Victory Point, Hobson found a cairn containing two notes written on the same piece of naval record paper, one written on 28 May 1847, the other on 25 April 1848. The first message gave some details of the expeditions journey to date and stated -‘All well’. The second message detailed the location of the ships when they were abandoned, the intention of the surviving crew members to head for Back’s Fish River several hundred miles away on the American mainland, and recorded the death of 9 officers and 15 men. Franklin was the only one named. He died on 11 June 1847. Following Franklin’s death, Captain Crozier took command.
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After spending the winter of 1845/46 on Beechey Island - where the graves of 3 crewmembers were discovered in August 1850 by Captain Penny - Franklin travelled south. The route he took is uncertain. North of King William Island in Peel Sound at a point 70°N, 90°W, the 'Erebus’ and ‘Terror’ were beset by ice from 12 September 1846 onward. The ships were abandoned on 22 April 1848. The nearest white settlement was over 1000 miles away and apparently the 105 surviving members of the party hoped to reach safety by ascending Back’s Fish River by boat. Flobson found one of the abandoned boats containing two skeletons, tools and other equipment; near a place he named Cape Crazier. Other relics were retrieved from Eskimos.
It seems certain that all members of the expedition had perished well before the first search parties were sent out. Stories told by Eskimo inhabitants suggest that only about 40 of the crew got as far as the Canadian mainland. Expeditions searching for further evidence and relics continued until the 1880s and beyond. Much of the impetus for the rescue efforts and search parties came from Lady Jane Franklin. She and her niece, Sophia Cracroft, spent time in Shetland and Orkney in July/August 1849, hoping to hear news of the expedition from whalers returning from Davis Strait.3 In 1952 members of the Canadian Airforce found a depot of supplies left by Franklin’s expedition.4
So what went wrong? Between 1981 and 1986 scientists from the University of Alberta, Canada, led by Owen Beattie a forensic anthropologist, conducted a series of expeditions looking for the remains of members of the Franklin’s expedition in an effort to learn more about the cause of their deaths. Beattie worked on the belief that it was unusual in the middle of the 19th century for a well-equipped expedition of hand picked men to have such a high death rate, particularly among officers - 24 out of a total complement of 129 were dead before the ships were abandoned in May 1848. Looking for burial sites and human remains, between where the ships were abandoned off King William Is and Back River, little was found. However the scientists were able to identify section of a skull and other bone fragments collected at Booth Point on the SW tip of King William Is. These were identified as a Caucasian male aged in his early or mid twenties. The bones gave some indications of scurvy. On analysis back in the laboratory, the bone fragments were found to contain extremely high levels of lead. As a follow up Beattie obtained permission to exhume the bodies of the three men who died early in the expedition and were buried on Beechey Island. Because of the harsh conditions this had to be done over several seasons. ‘Frozen in Time’ tells the tale of the exhumations and their findings.5 I believe a television documentary I saw some years ago was also about Beattie’s work.
The bodies of John Torrington, John Hartnell and William Braine were almost perfectly preserved by the cold conditions. They were reburied in their original graves after autopsies were conducted and body samples taken. All three bodies showed high lead levels and scientists were able to assess that this would have been obtained during the last months of their lives rather than earlier contamination in England or wherever. The bodies were extremely emaciated and indications of TB and pneumonia were present. It was probably pneumonia that finally killed them but lead poisoning would have been a factor in reducing their resistance and causing the emaciation.
Beattie was also able to collect samples of food tins the expedition had left behind on Beechey Island and analysis of these indicated that as well as lead solder being used on the inside of the tins, severe defects in the soldering process would have probably resulted in contamination of the contents. His conclusions are that the disastrous fate of the expedition was largely caused by lead poisoning, which would have affected both the physical and mental condition of the crew. He suggests the high ratio of death among officers, as compared to ordinary sailors, can also be explained by the lead findings.
“If the officers, a rigidly separated and very aloof class, even during long confined expeditions, were using their pewter tableware and eating a preferential food source (i.e. proportionally more tinned food), they may have ingested much higher lead than the other seamen. As for those men who died during the tragic death march in the spring and summer of 1848, some may have exhibited classic symptoms of poisoning, such as anorexia, weakness and fatigue, and paranoia, which would have compounded the effects of starvation and scurvy. Other crewmen may not have shown obvious effects of the poison, perhaps because of differing diets and physical response to the lead.”6
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A second factor that probably contributed to the disaster was the timing of the expedition, which coincided with one of the least favourable climatic periods in 700 years, when the sea ice was extremely thick and would not have melted in the summer.7
A slightly different hypothesis is proposed by Scott Cookman following his research into Admiralty records and the canning processes used by Stephen Goldner who supplied canned food to the Royal Navy.8 Cookman makes out a good case for the contamination of the tinned food with botulism and/or other toxic organisms. The canning of food was still a relatively new process and despite patenting a new canning process in 1841, Goldner methods had much to be desired. Quite apart from the poor application of hygiene in the preparation of food, it would appear that the tins Goldner used were subject to defects. The Admiralty stipulated 1,2,4 and 8 pound tins for the meat, vegetables and 1 pound tins for soups9, but in the time available it would have been almost impossible for Goldner to have the requisite number of small cans made (they were made by hand). Besides it was cheaper for him to use large cans (up to 10 pounds). The larger size cans required longer cooking times for the contents to be cooked right through and any organisms destroyed. It seems unlikely this was done, again because of time factor between when tenders were let and the goods had to be delivered. As it was Goldner delivered nothing on time and some supplies arrived only the day before sailing. It is therefore unlikely that the cans were carefully inspected and even if they had been it would have been too late to find an alternative supply.
In the early part of the voyage cooking would have destroyed toxic organisms but as time went on and coal supplies started to dwindle food may have been eaten raw. This would account for an increase in deaths after the May 1847 message was written. Botulism was not known at the time and the expedition’s doctors would have been mystified by sudden and quick deaths (about 3 days) caused by this organism. Seems to me the fate of the Franklin expedition was probably brought about by a combination of the factors described by Beattie and Cookman
I have a full list of the 129 members of the Expedition.
1 Letter from M Mathieson, April 1999
2 Basic details about the expedition are taken from R. Owen, The Fate of Franklin’
3 N. Kendall, ‘With Naught But Kin Behind Them’, p.165
4 B. Keating, ‘The North West Passage’, p.85
5 O. Beattie and J. Geiger, ‘Frozen in Time’
6 Ibid, p 162
7 O. Beattie and J. Geiger, ‘Frozen in Time’, p.72
8 S. Cookman, 'Ice Blink'
9 Ibid, p.114
Garry Gillard | New: 29 March, 2019 | Now: 5 September, 2022